


Honoring One's Heart

by Jemppu



Series: Honey Mushroom [45]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Art, Culmets - Freeform, Fanart, M/M, Tumblr, honey mushroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemppu/pseuds/Jemppu
Summary: Part of"Honey Mushroom"series of illustrated Culmets momentslisted here on tumblr.Paul’s post Hugh deliberation, sometime after the medal ceremony.With illustration:"LtCmdr Hugh Culber"
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Series: Honey Mushroom [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1080993
Kudos: 10





	Honoring One's Heart

**Author's Note:**

> The series gets released quite out of order, as inspiration dictates, so I urge you to check out the [series list on tumblr](https://tinyurl.com/honeyshroom) for a better picture of the whole.

## 

## Honoring One’s Heart  
  


He’s not here. It’s a memorial service nearing military level of pomp and circumstance, and there are many to honor the doctor and others like him, but Paul is not among them.

There’s but a ghostly figure by the sidelines of the ceremony - standing at the very back of the spacious room, near the exits, and behind the crowd, where he won’t be stared upon by anyone. Is he even following the procedures?

  
He is not in the uniform, no matter how much the man might like it. Only in a simple black suit. So it seems. With a simple black shirt.  
  
It is not just any suit however. This is the suit, and the shirt, he wore, when he first danced with the man.  
  
It’s not by design: this just happens to be his blackest suit, and his blackest shirt _(why was he ever dressed in all that black back then?)_.  
  
Or this is how he has convinced himself. It shouldn’t matter. But does it? If he had worn yellow to that dance _(not that he ever would)_ , would he now be dressed sunny as a spring day?  
  
None of this should matter. Not the suit, not the event, not the crowd. Paul is not here, and Hugh is not gone. Not yet anyway. They are still very much together, and just about to leave somewhere off by themselves, once done with this circus. To enjoy each others’ company somewhere away from all of this dreary pretend. Such a presentation, and for whose sake?  
  
 _“You don’t mind, if I’m not honoring you in accordance to the Fleet standards, do you?”_  
  
He still gets no response. Hugh hasn’t talked to him since Paul disembarked that cursed ship. He’s still here though, isn’t he? Paul would surely feel it, if the man left.  
  
But of course Hugh wouldn’t mind. The man would expect Paul to be like Paul is. To respect Hugh in what ever way Paul feels is his own. And he does. In a way, that no ceremony or a speech or public display of one’s grief would convey.  
  
Not that there would even be a way to show the loss. It is for him alone to feel. And he couldn’t give a fuck about anyone else’s feelings on the matter. Not on this one. This is his.  
  
Then again, why should he be mourning at all? Hugh may be gone in flesh, but it is not that easy to separate him from Paul. The man has grown on to him. Inseparable. Like some form of mycoparasite - _Entoloma_ to his _Armillaria_.  
  
You don’t simply yank that off with a single twist. Klingon or otherwise. No, the man is a part of Paul now. His thoughts and memories with him. It’ll take a long while of fine sanding to get that off. If it’s possible at all.  
  
There must be plenty of people here remembering the man as the officer of the Fleet that he is. And the other ones like him - Starfleet’s own, fallen during the war. Whom of them exactly each of these people are here to mourn is hard to tell however. Which makes their presence all the more irrelevant to Paul.  
  
Especially, if they are here to mourn a group. Paul can’t recognize but the individual. Or he would, if he was even taking part in this. Which he is not. He’s but a mere spectator - none of this really means anything, right?  
  
For Paul, it is also irrelevant whether the man is an officer or not. It is all the same. For him the man is his home, his heart. The curator of that part of him, which he didn’t accept he had before, but which he had since been unable to separate from. What ever will happen to that part now? Left without a supervisor.  
  
Paul doubts he knows how to take care of that part himself. And certainly he could never have anyone else to trust with it either.  
  
Maybe Hugh will get off of him, when that part withers? When ever that might be, it will have to happen without Paul noticing - he doesn’t think he would let it happen, if he sensed it.  
  
There are surely some familiar faces among the crowd today. Paul chooses not to regard them. And thankfully they don’t seek his acknowledgement either. He can’t even feel grateful of them for it. He shouldn’t have to.  
  
 _“We should just fucking go”_ , Paul speaks out in his mind, _“enough with this ridiculous show”_.  
  
These people might need each other for comfort - find solace in sharing their loss. But Paul needs no-one but his Darling.  
  
There’s a large print out of a portrait of Hugh on display in front of the venue - in a row among similar photos of the others who are remembered here today. Paul keeps staring at it across the masses and it’s currently the only thing keeping him from bolting out of here.  
  
In it Hugh is in his Starfleet dress uniform - it’s his official portrait. Paul has seen the photo once in passing before, but never saw Hugh himself in that outfit - which is a pity, as he’s fairly certain that would’ve been the man’s suit of choice for most special occasions - the most.  
  
He does remember those cufflinks though. Those were worn to the dance too.  
  
The photo was taken long before Paul ever knew the man, on the occasion of Hugh’s promotion to _“Commanding Lieutenant”_ , if he’s not mistaken. Much like Paul himself had gotten his official Starfleet portrait taken on similar occasion just recently. Similar on records anyway - the circumstances had to have been vastly different.  
  
Paul’s was but a portrait of a broken man, trying his hardest to feel pride for the both of them for being there, while also hiding his sorrow. Trying to keep it all together, and to go on despite everything. He can admit that to himself, it’s not something he needs to deny he’s doing: faking it.

Like he is right now standing here overlooking these useless proceedings, seemingly calm and unfazed, with a face of resignation on him, like he doesn’t want to just scream out and kick a few of these folding chairs next to him into this pretentious crowd - for them making light of the loss with such inconsequential pageantry.  
  
Paul huffs. Yes. Able to hide the agony from others certainly, but not from himself.  
  
Just putting on a persona like he has for his whole tenure as an officer of the Fleet.  
  
They might hear it in his honest opinions from time to time, get a brief glimpse through the harsh facade, but other than that, his true self is for very few to fully see. In fact, with everyone and everything else gone now, it belongs to only Hugh anymore. If it ever **had** belonged to anyone or anything else. Hugh had brought it out after all.  
  
Hugh was in Paul’s photo with him too - the black ribboned medal on his chest, right next to his heart. He doubts many see it though. And if they don’t, why should they - if it means nothing to them.  
  
His own certainly means nothing - the heart or the medal. That black ribboned medal however, right then, meant everything. So much so, it had surprised Paul: that he could ever feel any sentimentality over such otherwise purposeless trinket.  
  
And not just then - the trinket will surely hold meaning further still, as is apparent by what Paul is currently holding in his hand, running his thumb across in his jacket pocket.  
  
Anyhow, it obviously wasn’t a happy picture of him.  
  
Paul lifts his downwards turned gaze back up and across the sea of rear-view heads.  
  
This photo here however is something entirely else. Hugh looks so radiant in it. Full of pride and youthful vigor, and fucking sexy in his all white formal ensemble and the related regalia _(which Paul is still and again surprised to find he has any attraction for)_.  
  
The man is with less beard, than what Paul has gotten used to picturing him with - would those kisses still feel quite the same? And maybe with a bit smaller frame - but still a fucking hunk with those strapping shoulders. And that waist, which had to be an extra task for the uniform tailors to take in.

Paul remembers wrapping his arms around that waist each and every night.  
  
He shifts his arms. The spore drive ports on his forearms, beneath the layers of sleeves, suddenly feel so alien again right then.  
  
It’s not his first time in civilian clothing with them _(thanks to his insistence on own comfort wear out of the uniform)_ , but it is the first time with them off duty, since he’s off the ship. And they feel grossly out of place in these Earthly settings.  
  
Hugh too had come to dislike them - his own invention - as soon as it had become apparent how they were an obstruction between their embraces.  
  
Paul should get them removed, if they’ll no longer serve a purpose.

He takes his hands out of the pockets, folds his arms over his chest and goes back to staring across the room with what must appear quite a stern look.  
  
In this photo, the doctor appears with not a care in his mind, or any sense of what’s to come. As he fucking should be! Paul is nowhere to be seen here. He is in no way present in this picture or in this young man’s life.  
  
Maybe it should’ve **always** been like that. To avoid all this. Would Paul have been willing to relinquish his share of time with Hugh, if it meant this man in the photo was still out there? Living his life proudly. With that ever shining smile, that always positive outlook and the content attitude.  
  
And the Starfleet cut appearance, which Paul keeps coming back to not only in appreciation of the outwardly obvious, but because the man had passion for it - admirable discipline on maintaining such a form, no matter what. Desire to upkeep both his physical as well as his mental balance - respect himself and the organization he felt he represented.  
  
Such courteousness, which Paul finds hard to imagine he’d ever possess in himself.  
  
But, the time during which his sorry life had been enriched by this dignified man? If it was an option, would Paul give it all away? For Hugh’s sake. Could he?  
  
It would make Paul’s life infinitely lot smaller, but at least there would be one less useless, fucking undeserved casualty to this war. The one less casualty, that matters.  
  
Would he miss it even, if he never got to know that joy, which Hugh had brought to his life? Would he ever grow, as he had grown with Hugh.  
  
Would it feel this hollow inside him now, if he had never nurtured that part of himself, which he had because of Hugh. That loving, caring, understanding, accommodating part, that he had found so grossly overrated before the man.  
  
Paul knows full well what Hugh would think of all of this. He would scold Paul for even thinking of such things, of ‘sacrificing’ their precious shared memories, throwing away what little time they had together.  
  
 _“Come on. Come out with it then”_ , Paul thinks, waiting to hear the voice again, _“voice your disapproval”_. Nothing.  
  
The man would be right too. As always. What would be the point in living anyway, for either of them, if they didn’t have those moments together.  
  
These reoccurring thoughts. They are like that one nightmarish evening aboard Discovery, that he lived over and over again. Which must have been but a dream, right? How many times over does he need to kill Hugh in his mind again to finally feel okay with all of this? To finally accept it?  
  
What if he’s in that loop still? Maybe soon he’ll just wake up in Hugh’s arms again.  
  
No. He doesn’t care to do this anymore. Why should he have to? It isn’t helping anything or anyone.  
  
In fact, the best Paul could do is to try and keep that memory of the man alive, right? Not to kill it off.  
  
“Come on. Let’s go”, Paul huffs out quietly and turns to look at the doors behind him. “This is fucking ridiculous”, he speaks, not sure if it’s audible or just in his head. He doesn’t fucking care.  
  
Few disapproving and confused faces in the back row turn to glance at him. So, it probably was aloud.  
  
He then hears it in his mind at last - that familiar voice. He was starting to think it never left the damn vessel with him. But here it is now - finally -, calming and homely, it’s scolding Mushroom for acting out again - for disrespecting the current proceedings.  
  
 _“Fine!”_ , Paul scoffs in his mind, _“I’ll stay then”_. Put he can’t help but to feel grateful.  
  
He flashes a painfully forced apologetic expression to get the couple people still left staring at him to stop doing so, and settles himself back to his spot by the wall. His hands slip back into his pockets.  
  
He’ll suffer this through.  
  
But only because Hugh wants him to. Not for any of these fucking drones or their blasted organization. Only for Hugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts on the work posted along with the illustration on [**tumblr**](https://jmalkki.tumblr.com/post/177798069484/lt-cmdr-hugh-culber-by-popular-demand-so).
> 
> _Likes, shares, comments and what have you, all appreciated on:_  
>  _[ **tumblr**](http://jmalkki.tumblr.com/) | [**twitter**](https://twitter.com/Jemppu) | [**instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/jeminamalkki/) | [**DeviantArt**](https://www.deviantart.com/jemppu)_


End file.
